Secrets of Cenaroun [40K Freeform]

[RandomLunatic]

Whaddaya expect from beuraucracy? Cynthia asks. Go thorugh this junk and find something we can jam in tracks-in case we need it. Then hide. She grabs Aviva's arm. This means you, she grawls, dragging Aviva with her to the nearest pile of detritus.

[UncleWolf]

Hearing the armor, Jalek quickly tries to hide in a pile of trash on the opposite side of the road from Aviva and Cynthia.

He flips the safety off of his lasrifle and readies it.

Just in case.

[Illiterate Scribe]

Aviva, distractedly, is dragged along into the debris field, staff clanking quietly in the mess. She scrabbles about, looking for the requisite scraps, all the while trying to bore a hole through the darkness with her eyes.

[Ms.Malbolge]

You each scramble through the fungus ridden filth that lay so thick upon the side of the tunnel, digging your way in even as you begin to prepare for the worst. Cynthia grabs Aviva and drags her into cover even as the psyker tries to bore a hole into the darkness, her eyes seeming to glow for a moment before she is dragged off.

The rumbling gets louder and louder and soon the very earth seems to shake, loose pieces of refuse coming loose to slide down the great artificial hills, covering the group in Emperor-knows-what. Finally you see it, or it's light anyway, in the distance. A great beast of a machine roaring slowly towards you, two spotlights piercing the darkness as they rove over the great trash heaps, ever searching, and it doesn't take an Adept to realize that they are most likely searching for you.

The trash heaps begin to teeter as the armor begins to pass, it's great tracks turning rubble and refuse alike into dust and when the armor is close enough you get a good look at it. An old tank, it's chipped and dented carapace lined with grand sigils of ancient origin. Twin linked autocannons are attached at it's sides, a red targeting laser roams over the refuse pile, showing those of you observant enough where those mighty cannons are aimed. It's main gun is pointed firmly forward and the brief gouts of flame tell you that it's a heavy flamer.

When it passes many of the great refuse heaps become dangerously close to falling but through either luck or the will of the Emperor they endure and you live, for in your positions such an event would spell your fate as surely as a rock slide or avalanche. Behind the tank walks a squad of seven men dressed in the flak armor of the Guard though it is modified greatly and covered, like the tank before it, in ancient sigils. You see not their flesh for their armor fully encases them and their helmets bear re breathers and the glowing red slit at their eye level tells you they have targeting optics. The optics visors are attached via a bulky cable into the scopes of their massive autoguns which the large men seem to carry with ease and you see grenades and well used swords upon their belts.

They do not seem to find you as they begin to walk past and you cannot help but wonder if you will soon find yourself thrown against fierce warriors such as these.

But for now, if you so choose to let the kill team pass, the way to Kerr Septimar is open.

[Illiterate Scribe]

Aviva, eyes now somewhat less drill-like, peeks at the great Tank that rolls past. The sight of all those people, all those guns - they could help them, surely? No. Probably not. They didn't look like the type inclined to offer aid, what with their harsh edges, sharp ones that you could cut yourself on.

Instead, she fastens her gaze on the twisting runic script adorning the tank and the soldiers. If she looked at them just ... so, she could often 'recall' them from dreams and visions - at least, those back at her Scholastica Psykana Instruction Centre had looked on in worried affirmation when she presented crayon-wrought images of eldar runes, flaming eyes, skull-like glyphs, and three-dot triangles.

She screws up an eye, and stares.

[RandomLunatic]

The sound of the tank and its accompanying infantry recede into the distance, and Cynthia again breathes-for what seems like the first time in hours. She passes one of the frag grenades to Jalek. Here. And then she sets off towards Kerr Septimar.

[UncleWolf]

After the Armour and escort rolls by, Jalek breathes a sigh of relief. There would have been no way that they could have taken that on. Not with what they had now.

Thanks he says as he takes the offered grenade and puts it in it's slot on his belt.

Jalek keeps his finger near the trigger of his lasrifle as he travels in case anything else unexpected shows up.

[Ms.Malbolge]

Aviva screw up her eyes and stares at the sigils upon the ancient tank for a long moment but try as she might she is unable to recall their meaning or origin. When the tank passes along with the kill team the group breathes a collective sigh of relieve, for the thoughts of the Guardsman perhaps ring true, such a foe is beyond them, at the moment.

After grenades are exchanged Calk emerges from a particularly disgusting pile of refuse and makes his way toward the center of the tunnel, doing his best to shake off the sticky offal from his once immaculate inquisitorial robes.

Further down tunnel the refuse piles become larger and larger until they truly are a marvel. For mountains of human waste underground are a rare, if perhaps inglorious, sight. Soon you see dark colored, stained humans at the outskirts of your vision, deliberately so one would think. The sounds of mice and vermin become pronounced as well as the occasional scuffle of something larger.

Up you see the beginning of a trail of artificial lights set into the dark, slimy stone of the caves, a sure sign that your objective is near at hand. Sitting under the first light, however, is a rather thin woman, skin the color of the refuse around her while her stunningly red hair, seen clearly through the dirt, gives one the impression of.. well... flaming refuse. She looks at the group with pale blue eyes and her hands cling tightly to a rather archaic looking pistol as she raises it before her, holding it between her and you with trembling hands.

"Yous go away! Ya won' get me yer bastids!" Tears form at the edges of her eyes as you either stop, or being to pass...

[Illiterate Scribe]

Aviva is stunned by the sudden onset of this woman - after all, all the previous people that she had seen for weeks had been trying to kill her, or would be if they knew who or where she was. She holds up her hands, in an attitude that would be conciliatory if it did not come from a mangy, bloodsoaked waif with a large, sharp knife tucked in her belt (also covered in blood), a copy of the Imperial Guardsman's Primer dementedly clasped under her arm, and an impression beyond the simple psykana iconography (although Throne knows, that was enough) of too many eyes.

[RandomLunatic]

Cynthia puts her hands out to her sides, hands shoulder-high, and turns to face the woman. Whoah, ma'am. I think you have us confused with somebody else. Then, with all the sympathy she can muster, asks, What's wrong? Would you liek to talk about it?

[Ms.Malbolge]

The woman's eyes go wide when she see's not only the more than a little strange visage of Aviva but the other three, two of which look as if they could start, and win, a Hive war single-handedly. He hands tremble all the more, to such a point that it would take a slight miracle for a slug to hit you if she did find the courage to pull the trigger of the old weapons. She swallows and pushes herself farther back towards the wall with her legs, and it's clear that if she could she would push herself into the wall as well, to avoid the rather grim looking group.

Finally she seems to overcome her fear and awe and her mother opens and closes a few times before finally she is able to answer Cynthia's questions. "Te... Tey tooks dem, all oft dem into the tunnel city. All of Prith... gone. I's wait 'ere.. Kill 'em all when theys come again." Her eyes become watery as she speaks and her voice is hesitant even as it boils with an ignorant rage. It would seem either she or this Prith has been wronged some how and she intends to get justice, from the barrel of a gun perhaps.

Though it is quite clear the skinny young woman isn't going to find anything but her own death from such an endeavor.

[Illiterate Scribe]

Trying to look and sound less wrong, Aviva holds up the slate, a words written on it in large, open characters.

Who is

'Prith'?

Who are

'they'?

This woman had better be literate.

[UncleWolf]

Jalek quickly raises his hands and keeps them away from his weapons.

Wait, who are you talking about? Just who are "they"?

[Illiterate Scribe]

Upon realising that the words are as meaningless Rorschach tests to the woman, Aviva turns, scribbling something new on the dataslate, and then holdds it up triumphantly, in glorious colour, only slightly miffed that Jalek got there first. Trying to communicate through mutually incomprehensibly ranges of language would be about as much use as an illiterate scribe, but the language of images was something different.

[king.com]

Calk Wadous


In an attempt to grapple with the situation, he bangs his head against the wall. He was away for 5 minutes....

[Ms.Malbolge]

The woman blinks, turning her attention to the Guardsman for at least he is able to speak.. though his strange accent is hard for her to understand.

"Dem slava's in the big tunnel city." She points down the tunnel, toward Kerr Septimus. "Tey tooks all of Prith... all of Prith be slaves naw. Is kill dem, kill dem for takin' Prith!" Her eyes water and tears slowly begin to trickle down her cheek. Apparently Prith is a place, not a person.

(Bonus points to Scribe, whose pictures made me laugh.)

[king.com]

Calk Wadous

Maybe it was the sensative tissue scaring in his head or the blood now slowly trickling through his arm but it seemed apparently obviosu what was going on.

"Well evidently we are too late so simply 'assess' the situation in the hive if her words are true. Perhaps we should attempt to contact our benevolent overlord? The Inquisitor may need us to take another path hmm?"

[RandomLunatic]

Cynthia shoots Calk a withering glare, making a mnetal note to have a brief chat with him in a bit, then turns back to the woman. Killing yourself going against impossible odds won't help anybody. Do you know how many there are? What they look like? I can kleep an eye out ofr them while in town, which I promise you will be far more effective.

[Illiterate Scribe]

Aviva scribbles out another sketch, and holds it up.




This means of communication - it was somehow ... better. The epistemic distance between thought, word, act, was lessened. A more direct translation of thoughts to others.

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Haha, using terrible mousepad pictures to communicate is growing on me.